Hardship at time of charges - how long do they go back?

mrs_sparrow

10 years ago we got into real trouble - my husband got industrial asthma and was not allowed into work and placed on sick leave until the company sent him to hospital to find out what it was and then he was dismissed, that took a year. Around the same time my son was also diagnosed with a disability. They told him he had a claim for industrial asthma and he had to pursue that, however, he lost a high paying job and had to go into another company and start at the bottom on half the pay he was used to. We was in the overdraft all the time, had arrears on credit cards, etc... we was also made homeless by our landlord and could not get private rented place because of being in that situation.

We got housed (council) and 4 years after being dismissed he got a payout and it paid the overdraft off and some of the debts racked up, some are still outstanding and we are still paying them. I have finally decided to get my act together and claim back what we can as it will probably pay off most of what we still owe and it would be amazing to be free of this. I have found a HUGE box of paperwork and started running thought it last night. The amount of money people are saying they have been able to claim back would honestly change our lives. We lived on credit cards back then (shocking I know but we was just in a hole we could not get out of).

I am trying to find out how far back we can go on claiming the bank and credit card charges back - we have all the back statements and we was in the OD every month trying to keep afloat, are we able to claim this back because of hardship or not? And the credit card numbers we still have on various paperworks so I am using those.

I am nervous, we have a lot of letters to send but I figure we might as well try. Had we not had all the charges we might have been in a different place but because of my husband and son's illnesses, everything just spiralled. Thanks for any help.

dunstonh

Hardship at time of charges - how long do they go back?

Varies with banks but it is only CURRENT financial hardship cases and some banks will only consider refunding 6-12 months worth. That is if they refund any at all as they have other options available to them. Such as suspending charges for the next 6 months or putting you on a debt management process.

I am trying to find out how far back we can go on claiming the bank and credit card charges back - we have all the back statements and we was in the OD every month trying to keep afloat, are we able to claim this back because of hardship or not?

It is CURRENT financial hardship they look at. Not historic.